The present disclosure relates to a power inductor and a method of manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to a power inductor in which a degradation of reliability may be prevented and a method of manufacturing the same.
Inductors are coil components commonly used as electronic components in cellular phones and personal computers (PCs). Inductors generate inductive electromotive force in response to changes in magnetic flux. This phenomenon is commonly known as inductance, and in this regard, inductance increases in proportion to a cross-sectional area of a core of an inductor, the number of turns of a wire, and magnetic permeability of a coil.
As electronic components, inductors are commonly divided into wire wound inductors, multilayer inductors, and thin film inductors, according to methods of manufacturing thereof. In particular, power inductors are electronic components performing power smoothing or noise cancelation in a power terminal of a central processing unit (CPU), or the like. As a power inductor allowing a large amount of current to flow therein, a wire wound inductor is largely used. A wire wound inductor commonly has a structure in which a copper (Cu) wire is wound around a ferrite drum core. Thus, since a high magnetic permeability/low loss ferrite core is used, the inductor may have high inductance while being compact.
In addition, such a high magnetic permeability/low loss ferrite core can obtain the same amount of inductance, even when the number of turns of a copper wire is low and direct current (DC) resistance (Rdc) of the copper wire is also low, contributing to a reduction in battery power consumption.
A multilayer inductor is largely used in a filter circuit or in an impedance matching circuit of a signal line. The multilayer inductor is manufactured by printing a coil pattern containing a metal such as silver (Ag) as paste on ferrite sheets, and stacking the same. Multilayer inductors were commercialized globally in the 1980s. Starting from a multilayer inductor employed as a surface mounted device (SMD) for portable radios, multilayer inductors have commonly been used in various electronic devices. Since multilayer inductors have a structure in which ferrite covers a three-dimensional coil, magnetic leakage rarely occurs due to a magnetic shielding effect of ferrite, and multilayer inductors are appropriate for high density mounting in circuit boards.